What’s up with Stockton, Lukowich back in NHL, Wilson meeting with scouts back east and more

I’ve asked the questions, but don’t have all the answers yet on this Jason- Demers-to-Stockton transaction.

Yes, it happened. Sharks reassigned Demers to Worcester and Worcester reassigned him to Stockton. And, yes, he could be back on the San Jose roster without suiting up in an ECHL game.

Something is in the works with Stockton and geography is a factor as the Sharks look for a way to reassign players to a minor league team in their own backyard. But I don’t have enough information to spell out the details of what’s going on. Yet.

Still, it’s not that uncommon for NHL teams to work out special arrangements on occasion. Vancouver, for example, sent Brad Lukowich to the Texas Stars and not the Manitoba Moose so he could be closer to his wife’s family and their friends from his time in Dallas.

****The Canucks, by the way, today recalled Lukowich as an injury replacement for Kevin Bieksa so the former Shark is back in the NHL. Other teams could have claimed him off the waiver wire at a cost of only half his pro-rated salary, but that didn’t happen.

****Doug Wilson put himself on a flight to Worcester where he’s running the mid-season meetings with pro and amateur scouts. This is the annual session where the Sharks assess what they have and what they need and what else might be out there.

****Because I’ve officially got today off, I didn’t show up at this morning’s practice. My sources tell me, however, that Manny Malhotra (lower body injury) was not out on the ice and there were no player reassignments or recalls.

Which doesn’t mean that Demers still couldn’t be back in time to play against Los Angeles tomorrow night.

****Some of the post-game questioning after that 4-1 victory over Edmonton was fishing for a sense of how the team was responding to this current eight-game win streak. Typically, players chose to downplay the accomplishment.

Rob Blake did the best job of putting the streak in context:

“Take a look a the standings. You win eight in a row and you don’t jump too far ahead of anyone. We need to keep it up.”

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.